Phoenix
by nomatterthewreckage
Summary: Maybe they are in hell: he will never be allowed a nice life with a unbroken family and she will never be with him in the way she deserved to be. Maybe they are damned to pass each other by for the rest of eternity.


Scully finds him again at a park in Chicago. She is perched on a bench reading a book she's already read five times. The breeze feels fresh on her skin, while the sun has brought out the children of summer and her own need for fresh air.

He is on the swings standing on the seat pretending he can fly, while his mother chats with another woman not noticing her son's recklessness.

He inevitably falls—crashing hard to the earth like a bird shot out of the sky. His shrill, scream pierces the air. Most of the other children don't notice his distress, but Scully immediately looks up and sees the boy crumpled in distress. She throws down her book, not caring to mark her spot, and rushes to the boy's side.

His eyes are shut tight in pain—as if not looking at the wound could will it away. Whimpering he reaches over to clutch his wound. Warm blood envelops his hand like an old friend and starts to soak his blue t-shirt.

"It's going to be okay. I'm a medical doctor," she assures the child. He just groans in reply. She checks his wound and applies pressure to stop the river of blood running from his arm. Scully, voice calm and steady, orders someone to call 911.

"Sam!" His mother finally notices her son gasping in pain on the park's red mulch.

She continues to apply pressure to his wound. His eyes are still shut as his throat quivers with caged moans of pain—he is trying to be strong. Tears still stream down his face despite his best attempts to repress them. A few minutes later Scully hears the sirens of an ambulance.

"Help is almost here. You're being extremely brave." Her voice is warm and comforting. It is a sharp contrast to his mother's voice that is yelling in a high-pitched tone on her phone. She's arguing with his father over how she couldn't have possibly prevented the accident from happening. He'd always been a reckless kid after all.

The boy finally opens his eyes to look up at the nice women. Red-eyed and pale—he gives her a pained grin.

Her heart feels like it skips a beat.

People say the eyes are the window to the soul. Scully knows this as fact. She at first was of course skeptic to believe in reincarnation or metempsychosis or any of the other crazy theories about afterlife, but she has seen too much not to believe anymore.

The boy looks at her with the same knowing, wondrous, and kind eyes of Fox Mulder. And just like that, she knows she's found him again. It is ineffable to how she knows. She just does. The ache in her heart whenever she sees him again is the only constant she knows in her life. She knows no matter where she goes, he will always be waiting for her, or she supposes she will always be the one waiting for him.

Mulder was right when he said their souls were inexplicably connected. She has met him time and time again, and each time an overwhelming feeling of familiarity washes over her in waves that make her feel like she is drowning. It is heart stopping.

She does not believe it the first time it happens years after she first lost him.

He is a twenty-year-old college student with alcohol poisoning being rushed into the emergency room she's working in. It is not a pretty sight as they pump the poor kids stomach, as he lay unconscious to the world around him. The next day, she goes to check up on him and has to withhold a gasp when she walks in the room. His clean-cut, sandy blonde hair and freckled face looks nothing like Mulder's messy, brown hair and clear complexion, yet his eyes are completely identical. She quickly composes herself and introduces herself to the kid, while he shamelessly flirts with her. He even makes her blush a little.

She goes home that night feeling flustered and sad. She thought she was finally getting over him—or at least felt she could breath a little easier—but she feels the same intense ache in her chest that she felt when she first lost him. She knows she is being irrational: it isn't really him.

It can't possibly be him.

But she supposes stranger things have happened. She lays in bed pondering how her entire existence shouldn't be possible. She should have grown old with Mulder. She should have buried him in a small cemetery in Virginia near his family and joined him shortly after. Her story should have ended years ago. She feels like she somehow ended up in some twisted version of Groundhogs Day where the universe decided to focus solely on her.

But it doesn't really focus on her.

Everyone else moves on with their lives. They are born. They live. Then they die.

She is completely envious of them all. She sees immortality as a curse and doesn't understand how anyone can purposefully strive for it. How can there be purpose in life when it never ends?

She once feared intimacy because she feared death, but now she fears intimacy for the fear of being left behind. How can you live knowing everyone you love is going to die and leave you?

She returns to the hospital the next day with thoughts of old, green eyes, to find the boy has checked out. She never sees the boy again after that.

She continues on trying to erase him from her memory.

The next time she sees him is at a bar in Seattle. He is a random thirty-something year getting drunk to forget his own misery in a bar that looks like it should have been shut down by health inspectors a month ago. It is dingy and poorly lit with only a few other sad patrons scattered around the room.

She feels a tap on her shoulder and is prepared to tell him to politely mind his own business when she turns around and sees that familiar grin and those warm, green eyes. Her heart flutters. It has been so long since she has felt warmth fill her chest. It is the type of warmth that settles deep in your bones to let you know you are alive and everything is going to be okay.

She has been lonely. Living in big cities gives her a sense of anonymity that she craves. She likes that everyone else has their own lives and are too busy to notice her, but she realizes that she doesn't _know_ anyone anymore. Everyone she could say she was close to is long dead.

"Nice keychain. Not many people are very aware of the Apollo missions," he says pointing to her keys that she has been holding onto since she entered the bar.

She doesn't know why but she lets him buy her a drink.

Then she lets him take her home.

The soft kisses he places on her body remind her of the times when Mulder would come home to her after a particularly hard case and insist everything was fine and make love to her. He worshipped her entire being, while he fell apart inside. This man worships her body—not her soul. They are still strangers after all, but there is a familiarity that neither of them can explain or didn't want to explain.

The next day she wakes up in an empty bed with the sun peaking through the shades shining in her eyes. She reaches over to the other side of the bed trying to feel the warmth of another person. It is cold. She gets dressed and goes home to her empty apartment. She cries herself to sleep that night thinking about the mornings when Mulder would hold her close whisper sweet promises that they both knew he couldn't keep.

She feels shattered.

The next time she finds him, she is working as a nurse in Kansas. She opts for a quieter life this time. The hours are easier. People are nicer. She has just moved to town and is just getting to know everyone the day it happens. The town is ablaze with whispers of the new girl from the big city that has moved to their sleepy home.

She bumps into him at work and apologizes swiftly. The charts she is holding fall to the floor and the both bend down to pick them up. They both reach for the same folder and their hands brush against each other in an accidental caress. They both look up and into each other's eyes embarrassed.

"I'm so sorry," she says standing up. She straightens her posture remaining calm. She can't help but feel excited this time. She feels her denial about the whole situation melt away. He is not some random, irresponsible kid. He is not some creep in a bar. He is a doctor. Handsome. Familiar. And most importantly standing right in front of her with a goofy grin on his face and light in his eyes.

"No, I'm sorry. I should have watched where I'm going. I'm Doctor Nick Johnson," he says extending his hand to her. She shakes his hand and introduces herself. She can't help but find his name amusing. Nick Johnson is such an ordinary name compared to Fox Mulder. She chats with him for a few minutes and can't help but draw comparisons to Mulder. He has the same whit and humor that Mulder once had so long ago.

He dismisses himself because he has to get back to work—as does she. She can't keep her grin off her face for the rest of the day.

"Honey, you look like you just met Jesus," Annie, an older nurse says to her as they both sit at the nurse's station updating charts.

"It's nothing," Scully replies coolly trying to stop grinning. "Actually, what can you tell me about Dr. Johnson?"

She figures she might as well get some information.

"Oh, sweetie," Annie sighs, "that mans been off the market since he was sixteen. He married his high school sweetheart when he was only nineteen and they've been happily married since. Trust me, in a town like this men like that are never really single."

Scully's smile disappears. She tries to remain apathetic and purses her lips trying to hold herself together.

"But I wouldn't worry if I were you. A pretty young thing like you is gonna find a man in no time."

Scully has never been one admit defeat easily and remains in the town for another two years not wanting some man to be the reason she leaves.

She went there to find peace but only finds more pain. Every town event and piece of gossip finds it's way to her. That's just how small towns go. She sometimes passes him and his wife laughing as they buy groceries together in the small mini market. She sees them on date nights when she sometimes goes out with random men in town that are persistent enough in asking her out that she finally says yes. She tries to rationalize with herself that this is not Mulder, but she can't help but feel a little betrayed whenever she looks him in the eyes.

She forgot that she and Mulder found the darkest of horrors in the small towns meant to be the quiet safe haven away from urban life.

One day she is eating lunch in the cafeteria when she overhears him talking to his friends.

"I'm not supposed to tell you guys this yet," he says with a smile that makes her want to cry. He looks so happy. "But Millie is finally pregnant."

Scully goes home sick that day and lives the next few weeks in a haze.

Eight weeks later she is changing in the locker rooms when she overhears two young nurses gossiping.

"It is so not fair!" The young woman whines.

"I know! She isn't good enough for him," the other girl complains. "Why does she get everything?"

"I don't know, but did you hear they're having a boy?"

Scully moves a week later with old wounds reopened and new scars on her heart that will never fade. It is not a man that drives her away, but the memory of a baby she never got the chance to love like she deserved to.

She used to wonder what happened to William and his soul, but mothers are not meant to outlive their children and she tries to not think about him.

She realizes something has to change. She can't go on like this.

She meets him again in Boston.

She does not expect to see him so soon. He even looks a few years younger than her. She tries to calculate in her head how long it has been since she last saw the young doctor and his family. He surely could not have lived a long life when he is standing right in front of her as a twenty-something baker.

She wonders if maybe Mulder's soul is never meant to have a family like he deserves. Maybe they are in hell: he will never be allowed a nice life with an unbroken family and she will never be with him in the way she deserves to be. Maybe they are damned to pass each other by for the rest of eternity.

"What can I get for you?" he asks with a chipper cadence filled with the enthusiasm that only young, undamaged people have. His hair is floppy and brown like it was when she first met him as Fox Mulder. He has an angular jaw that is covered in stubble and makes her want to rip her eyes out because here he is: young, attractive, and probably taken.

"Just a box of a dozen regular macaroons," she says in a monotone voice. She avoids eye contact trying not to show the sadness in her eyes. At this point in her life she feels like she is finally living again. She is doing a job she enjoys that doesn't take up all of her time. She has friends again whom she goes out with on a regular basis. She goes to bakeries on her days off from work eating sweets and not caring about calorie count because she is really over the weight trends that come and go over the years. Life is too long for her to eat bee pollen yogurt everyday.

But here he is again. She feels like every time she meets Mulder, her life gets turned upside down in the worst ways possible.

The man rings her order up and hands her the box of sweets. She takes the box and pays quickly with cash telling him to keep the change as she rushes out the door.

She goes to her usual spot in the Boston Commons and opens the box of cookies prepared to stress eat the entirety of it's contents when she finds that he has tripled her order for free. Perhaps he only took pity on her because she seemed upset.

She goes back the next day on a whim and asks him out on a date. She feels utterly stupid when the words come out of her mouth.

He says yes.

And they are in each other's arms again like he never left. It's different this time around without the FBI and aliens to worry about. They still have a relationship that is completely unique to them, but this time it is built off the need to eliminate boundaries and a lie that Scully tries to pretend won't take him away from her again.

When they reach their late 30's he notices something is off. His hairline is starting to recede. His beard is going grey and his face has an increasing amount of lines mapping out the life he has lived making him look wiser. He jokes with her about how she still looks just as beautiful as the day she met him. She laughs nervously and quickly changes subjects whenever he brings it up.

One day, on what should have been her fortieth birthday, she starts crying uncontrollably when he tells her to make a wish on the birthday cupcake he baked her. She insisted on no party or cakes.

"What's wrong," he asks—his voice dripping with concern. She has seemed so sad lately, but every time he asks her what is wrong she insists she is okay. Then she kisses the lines around his face and runs her hands through his thinning hair and looks at him like she will never see him again.

"I can't stay here anymore." She can't help the quiver that shakes her voice. Tears stream down her face despite her features remaining impassive. She has thought about this moment a lot.

"Are you breaking up with me?" he asks shocked. She only nods slowly unable to say anything else. He stands up ready to fight her wild words. "I know we fight sometimes, but things have been good. The shop has been doing well again. I got over the fact that you won't marry me. I've tried to not be so stubborn. This is coming from nowhere."

"I can't explain it to you," she says looking down at her hands not feeling confident enough to see the pain on his face.

"Try!" he yells. "We've been together for twelve years! You can't just break it off for no reason!"

Scully looks up to find him gazing at her with brows furrowed in anger and eyes wet with unshed tears.

"You won't believe me," she says. She feels the irony of her situation. She started as the skeptic but now she is the unbelievable story. She's been carrying around her secrets for long. She's misses Mulder so much and misses the confidant she had in him.

"I trust you more than anyone in the world. I know you would never lie to me," he says calmly.

So she tells him. She tells him everything. She tells him of Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. She tells him about their fight for the truth. She tells him about how she lived through the attempted alien colonization. She tells him about the X-Files and how they still exist. She tells him about how she is probably the longest running X-File case and how she sometimes wishes everything would just stop. She tells him about how the FBI is helping her change identities after every fifteen years—long enough for people to say she is lucky but not long enough for them to get suspicious. She tells him about how she has met him in everyone one of his lives. She tells him about the burden of living forever and the immense loneliness it causes.

He stares off into space for a while when she finishes. They sit together in silence.

"Show me," he says.

"Show you what?"

"The X-Files."

A week later they are in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. It has been completely redone of course and she barely recognizes it since the last time she was there. The department has expanded and runs just like any other. It is no longer two lone agents against the world.

Her file is huge and complex. Years of medical tests and history confuse the man as he reads through the unbelievable.

He was wrong when he said she could never lie to him. They go home almost immediately after he finishes reading the file.

"I'm going with you," he says to her when they get back to their apartment. She was concerned because he has not said a word since they left the FBI headquarters.

"You can't," she replies exhausted. Telling him of her burdens has only caused her more stress the past two weeks. He should not have to life with her problems that can't be fixed. "I'm not uprooting you from your life here. You can still live a normal life."

"You are my life," he says. "I'm not going to be able to live day to day knowing you're out there. I'm going with you."

She recognizes his steely glare. It means he is not going to change his mind. He is putting his foot down.

They fight another month about it. Scully only really starts to take him seriously when he sells his shop and shaves off his facial hair that he has been working on for a while.

"If my girlfriend is immortal I need keep up my youthful appearance," he says as she looks at him in shock.

Their story has to change over the years. Telling people she is just his nurse burns just as much as they though it would. Their love evolves into something more platonic as he grows older, but they still love each other more than anything in the world.

They are soul mates after all.

There comes a day in late July when Scully has to bury him just as she buried Mulder. She feels strangely at peace alone in the cemetery hours after the service is over. The warm sun beats down on her face and when it sets it reminds her to go home. Her eyes remain red and glassy from her tears as she leaves, but she feels different somehow.

She has lost him again and again, but she keeps finding him despite the odds. They are always beating the odds together. Her heart still aches though. Towards the end, they had long talks about how she was to move on. He did not want her to wait around for him to enter her life again.

They'd be together again when it was meant to be.

In the park she watches the paramedics load young Sam into the ambulance. She realizes she will never see the boy again — not that she really wants to. It would feel so unholy watching him grow up knowing what she knows. At this point, he is just a mess of tangled, young limbs. His small hands still grasp too hard onto things that he will completely release in a few short years. He was a kid that is going to grow up and be a new person—a whole person who does not worry about aliens or missing sisters or partners with cancer. She can't change his fate in this life or any other life.

She stands up and wipes the dirt from her legs and goes back to her book with blood on her hands and a new face to add to the list of people she has abruptly lost.

She still yearns for the long nights in the poorly lit basement of the FBI despite how long it has been. She yearns for the nights of tangled sheets and sweet kisses they shared. But the world still turns in the same direction it always has—no matter how hard she wants it to go back.

She's always been meant to save Mulder no matter where or who he was: the man who could only receive intimacy in the forms of one night stands or a college kid who drank too much or a doctor that never really needed saving but sometimes just needed a friendly face smiling at him from time to time or a child that lived on the edge of danger or a man with a mission to find the truth.

She doesn't feel so cursed or alone anymore. She has come to realize that no matter where she goes or who she is, or pretends to be, she will always have Mulder in one way or another.

She is at peace with it.

She has to be.


End file.
